Ferrari secured the top two spots in first practice for this weekend’s FIA WEC round at Spa with the #50 coming in a second ahead of the sister car following a flying lap from Antonio Fuoco.
The two factory Ferrari 499Ps set the pace in the first practice session of the World Endurance Championship weekend in Spa as Antonio Fuoco set the pace in Thursday’s first 90-minute session aboard the No. 50 Ferrari 499P, his early effort of 2:05.690 putting him 1.141 seconds up on the sister No. 51 car wheeled by Antonio Giovinazzi.
The Scuderia’s closest rival was Lamborghini, whose solo SC63 set a highly encouraging 2:06.998 to go third overall and quickest of the LMDh cars in the field, 1.308 seconds off the pace in the hands of ex-Formula 1 racer Daniil Kvyat.
In fourth was the best of the Alpine A424s, the No. 36 car of Nicolas Lapierre, which was the fastest car entered in the Hypercar World Cup for privately funded entries just a further 0.014s behind Kvyat while the top five was rounded out by the third-string No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari of Yifei Ye.
Porsche’s top representative was the No. 99 Proton Competition entry in which Neel Jani went sixth fastest, ahead of the two works Penske-run 963s. The points-leading No. 6 Porsche was the quicker of the two in the hands of local driver Laurens Vanthoor, ahead of Frederic Makowiecki in the No. 5 car.
Rounding off the top ten were the best of the revised Peugeot 9X8s, the No. 93 car of Nico Mueller, and the No. 35 Alpine in which Paul-Loup Chatin set the best time.
Toyota suffered a dismal start to the weekend with its pair of GR010 Hybrids ending up down in 11th and 16th places. Sebastien Buemi produced the Japanese marque’s best lap of 2:07.676 aboard the No. 8 car, 1.986 seconds off the pace, while Mike Conway was a further half a second behind in the No. 7 Toyota.
Of the 19 Hypercars, at this early stage of the weekend, the top 11 came within two seconds of the #50’s time in the Ferrari and every car the Isotta Fraschini Tipo6-C lapped within three seconds. The entire field completely plenty of laps, all but three crossing the timing beam 30 or more times.
In LMGT3, TF Sport topped the times with its #82 Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R after Daniel Juncadella pulled off off a 2:20.885. The field looked well balanced at this stage, with six of the nine manufacturers setting times in the top six.
The #54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari ended the 90-minute session second with a 2:21.220 from Davide Rigon, 0.355 seconds behind the leader while the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin rounded out the top three.
Daniel Mancinelli put the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo third-fastest, another tenth behind Rigon, ahead of Michelle Gatting in the Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 and Maxime Martin in the No. 46 WRT BMW M4 GT3.
It was a more quiet start to the week for the championship-leading Pure Rxcing Porsche, which would complete 34 laps but end up seventh in the times, almost three seconds off the leading Corvette.
The session was disrupted by only one full-course yellow to retrieve debris at Les Combes with 52 minutes left on the clock.
